Nonneseter Abbey, Oslo (''Nonneseter kloster i Oslo''), was a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

located in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, active between the 12th and 16th centuries.

History

Nonneseter Abbey is mentioned for the first time in 1161, but was founded before that, possibly by as much as several decades earlier. It was dedicated to the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

. The community quickly became wealthy under the leadership of influential abbesses from some of the country's highest-born families. The

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Copt ...

es are only partially known from official documents. The abbess Elin Jonsdatter, for example, is mentioned only between 1459 and 1476, when several documents of her financial and business transactions are preserved. Perhaps because the members of the convent where from Norway's elite families, the fate of the convent under the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

was less harsh than that of many other monastic communities. While the convent was formally dissolved during the Reformation, it seems that the nuns were allowed to remain in residence for several decades afterwards, perhaps until the end of the 16th century. The abbey's estates passed into other hands in 1547, from which time the buildings began to decay, and in 1616 the walls of the former abbey church were used as a quarry for building stone for the new town hall.

Site and buildings

The site of the abbey, and any remains, are apparently under the buildings at Schweigaardsgate 55 and Grønlandsleiret 73. There are no visible remains. When Schweigaardsgate was re-developed in 1879, the corner of a building in worked stone was discovered, which was believed to be the south-west corner of the abbey church. Large portions of the rest of the church's remains may well have been destroyed during the construction of Schweigaardsgate 50 in 1887. Various other finds of stonework and skeletons in the area indicate possible sites of other remains.

Literary reference

The abbey is perhaps best known as the place where the novelist

Sigrid Undset Sigrid Undset () (20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Norwegian- Danish novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, but her family moved to Norway when she was two years old. In 1924 ...

set her character the young

Kristin Lavransdatter ''Kristin Lavransdatter'' is a trilogy of historical novels written by Nobel Prize, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset. The individual novels are ''Kransen'' (''The Wreath''), first published in 1920, ''Husfrue'' (''The Wife''), published in 1921, and ...

in the first volume, ''Kransen'' (1920), of the eponymous trilogy, during which Kristin was placed there in a form of schooling under the abbess Groa.

References

Other Sources

* Bull, E. (1922): ''Kristianias historie'', vol. 1: ''Oslos historie''. Kristiania. * Fischer, G. (1950): ''Oslo under Eikaberg'', pp. 131–132. Oslo

External links

Norske kloster i middelalderen: Nonneseter kloster i Oslo
{{Coord, 59, 54, 31, N, 10, 46, 05, E, region:NO-07_type:landmark_source:kolossus-nowiki, display=title Buildings and structures in Oslo History of Oslo Christian monasteries established in the 12th century Benedictine nunneries in Norway Medieval Norway 12th-century establishments in Norway 16th-century disestablishments in Norway Monasteries dissolved under the Norwegian Reformation